I’m going start this review talking about the END of the book. Mark Manson’s final chapter talks about a tragic accident in which his close friend Josh died. He talks about life before the tragedy and life after. Of all the anecdotes and quotes and stories in the book, this part of the book was the part I could relate to the most. In 2010, my grandmother died after a long battle with cancer and her death stirred up things in me that sent me straight to therapy and anti depressants. Why? Because it made me face things that I was unprepared to face. It made me think about things that I never thought about before. Suddenly I was afraid to die. I still am and yet this is something that logically I know will happen to all of us. But I guess what scares me is when I think about what my life would have meant once I am gone. Legacy. All of what we do is based on the hope that it means something, because if we aren’t doing things that are meaningful then what does it all mean?  The truth is, we are not on this earth for a very long time and some people’s time on earth is shorter than others. So why waste our days on giving a rat’s ass about things that don’t REALLY matter? This book is not about not giving a f*ck about anything. It’s about giving a f*ck about real things, not the superficial, not cars, the titles, the money.

“How will the world be different and better when you’re gone? What mark will you have made? What influence will you have caused?

This books surprised me.  The title drew me in because on the surface it reeked of sarcasm and cynicism which is who I am on the surface. But that’s just a cover (see what I did there?) I say I don’t care a lot about a lot of things. Sometimes that statement is true but most times it’s not. But honestly it’s easier to say that than to express feelings.

“I told everybody that I didn’t care about anything when the truth was I cared TOO much.” 

Holy smokes. Get out of my head dude! There are many gems like this in the book which I will leave for you to discover. In essence this is a book about philosophy and to call it a “self-help” book is a great disservice. Let’s be real, there are a lot of things taking up space in our brains and in our psyche and A LOT of what consumes our thoughts is noise. We must block out the noise and focus on what’s important.  This is like, REALLY hard to do. I try to meditate and at first I’m focused on breathing and a mantra and then “What am I gonna eat for dinner?” “God, I really don’t want to go to that meeting tomorrow.”  STOP!!! Most of the problems we have are self inflicted. Things we can change, we don’t. Sometimes the change we seek is so much of a risk that we’d rather keep the problem than find the solution because what if it doesn’t work?

” If we’re unwilling to fail, then we’re unwilling to succeed.”

Too many times I’ve chosen to play it safe than risk failure, and then I blame myself for not being more brave, then I feel bad. Manson calls this  “The Feedback Loop from Hell” and he ain’t lying. This book put a lot of things into perspective.  It’s direct, it has humor, and it unveils some ugly truths. It’s tough love with bad language and you know what? I dig that.